Possibly, although it wasn't specific to just this area. Lots of places had negative DP and temps of zero to one, yet recorded rain or sleet. Odd, but would be interesting to know why for future ref
Originally Posted by: Retron
It's still a decent rough guide to whether it'll snow or not but experience shows it's far from perfect!
In particular, it assumes that there's a linear decrase in temperature with height and that there are no troublesome moist/milder layers aloft. You can see these on upper air charts, but they're not regularly posted on here (or anywhere, for that matter).
With this current spell there have been all sorts of complications, as shown by this midnight ascent from the south coast of England (Herstmonceux this morning):
http://weather.uwyo.edu/cgi-bin/sounding?region=europe&TYPE=TEXT%3ALIST&YEAR=2015&MONTH=01&FROM=3100&TO=3100&STNM=03882
Note how at around 750 feet there's milder air, temperatures are well above freezing and the dewpoint + temperature formula would give a positive result. It was so very, very marginal!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRES HGHT TEMP DWPT RELH MIXR DRCT SKNT THTA THTE THTV
hPa m C C % g/kg deg knot K K K
1000.0 -148
975.0 52 0.0 -0.7 95 3.74 270 4 275.1 285.5 275.8
974.0 60 0.6 -0.3 94 3.86 272 5 275.8 286.5 276.5
968.0 111 1.6 -0.3 87 3.88 285 7 277.3 288.2 278.0
961.0 170 1.7 -0.8 84 3.78 300 11 278.0 288.6 278.6
950.0 264 1.8 -1.5 79 3.62 303 20 279.0 289.2 279.6
942.0 333 1.7 -2.2 75 3.46 305 27 279.6 289.4 280.1
937.0 377 1.6 -2.7 73 3.36 306 26 279.9 289.5 280.5
925.0 482 0.8 -3.7 72 3.16 310 24 280.1 289.2 280.7
921.0 517 0.8 -4.1 70 3.08 308 23 280.5 289.3 281.0
913.0 587 0.2 -4.6 70 2.99 305 21 280.6 289.2 281.1
895.0 746 -1.1 -5.8 70 2.78 299 22 280.8 288.9 281.3
That explains a lot, the snow would need to fall through 1,000 feet of above freezing temperatures before reaching the cold surface, no wonder it rained!